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What would the founding fathers think about this.
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Should the government pay for a high-speed rail system? <br />A high-speed rail lines have been proposed by some intelligent members of our great forum, I decided I might present a somewhat overlooked side of this issue. <br /> <br />Just to set things straight airline subsidies, and the roads being paid for by tax dollars are hardly an excuse to. I am not against a new passenger rail service, but should Uncle Sam be paying for it? Well, for the answer let us turn back the years and listen to what the founding fathers have said. <br /> <br /> <br />Before Uncle Sam was so fat on government pork. <br /><i>…a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring each one another, which shall leave them <b>otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of </b>industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of a good government.”- Thomas Jefferson, 1801</i> <br />Building an expanded rail system with government money, is hardly keeping a wise and frugal government; sure our government may not be and wise or frugal as it once was, but we need to move in the right direction. <br /> <br /><i>“The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people, who are under many uncommon difficulties and distresses at this time, so that all reasonable frugality ought to be observed.” -John Adams, 1735-1826.</i> <br />Should people be forced to toil to pay for it, which don’t want to, what kind of freedom would that be? <br />Surely taxes would have to be raised to pay for a rail system. <br /><i>Avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.”- George Washington.</i> <br />I think the idea of the government paying for any thing like the suggested rail system should be shunned. <br /> <br /><i>”Agriculture, manufactures, <b>commerce</b>, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left the most free to individual enterprise.” <br />- Thomas Jefferson, 1801.</i> <br />We can’t risk upsetting a pillar of our prosperity, just to have a system of transportation; even I would love to see. I am not saying it shouldn’t be done, it just shouldn’t be done with government money, get some investors, it has been done before. <br /> <br />What do think? What lines might be workable, or are there none? <br />No flames please. Do we have jalapeno popcorn?[img] http://fullsizebronco.com/forum/images/smilies/popc1.gif [/img] <br />
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